Jane Austen in Ireland, 1845.

Dear friend, I thought you might be interested in this oddity I stumbled upon recently. As you know, our classes in local history are a focal point of involvement between this college and the community. Since the launch of our diploma course we have seen the number of students spiral, as return-to-education applicants avail of our excellent opportunities to reacquaint themselves with learning skills.

I keep my eye out for anything remotely eccentric or strange that comes my way. It helps me to retain interest in the various topics students choose as subjects for their theses, as it was far from the field patterns of Longford or the price of heifers and the payment of church tithes in Mullingar that I did my research. For my sins I investigated the transition in monarchy from Elizabeth I to James I in seventeenth-century England and Scotland. My prime concern was the developing language of religious extremism under both rulers. When I first came to this university--then it really did operate as how my idea of a university should--that is the very era I was appointed to teach. Now, if you were mad enough to express an interest in the life and times of what we nicknamed Liz and Jack, you might be whipped into studying with the Country and Western expert who shares her teaching duties between Music and English. Who would have thought there could be much in the lyrics of Dolly Parton? Her descent from Ulster Protestants does no harm in these ecumenical times. Yes, who knows what code lies hidden in that refrain of hers

 
   Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please don't take my man, 
   Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, please don't take him, even though 
   you can. 

I digress. I repeat I am now running this local history course. Literacy is not a requirement. An address in the vicinity of the college is adequate academic qualification.

Even a grandparent born within yodelling distance of our hearing would be sufficient. Would you believe we were once considered to be a seminary of sorts? There are now no religious barriers. Indeed you would be welcome garbed in the roles of a Hari Krishna monk, so desperate are we for numbers. I do believe we might fall on you were you to present yourself donned in the full regalia of the Klu Klux Klan. Particularly if you can discern a connection between the Klan and the linen mills of the Irish Midlands. Perhaps the mills provided the Klansmen with low priced sheets.

Among the gems of human knowledge I have so far this year examined include button-moulding in Tinahealy; the use of turf in Leixlip during World War II; and, my personal favourite, the history of a family thimble passed down to the present day. It is that present day which challenges me as a teacher. I so long to recommend that the title be changed and that we stretch our musings into what the future might hold for this family thimble under discussion. Would it be terribly unhistorical to engage in science fiction? I think not--a surge of excitement is unlikely to occur and change the destiny of this object, this thimble, beyond recognition, beyond predictability.

It is that predictability I despise about this teaching. I am expected to smile interest in heirlooms, extensive letters from England, multitudes of letters from Scotland, a mountain of letters from America--Jesus, I wish even one of the tribe had gone to the wilds of Wales--photographs of works' outings, the recently discovered minutes of County Monaghan Council meetings 1953-1982, and indeed I do smile, for what I cannot doubt is the sincerity behind all this showing, all this gathering. I must resist imagining I put a match to all of this, because it is evidence of a sort that the people who were before these people did pass on what could be passed on--even if that were worth next to nothing.